Eliminate Mental Clutter Through Meditation

[nandm]

A lot of stress can be traced to the negative "chatter" that goes on in our minds ---- muddled thoughts about what we said or did or should have said or done, or what we think we might say or do ---- which only serves to distract us from fully enjoying the present. Meditation provides a welcome break from internal as well as external noise. Try this exercise, one of many ways to meditate:

1. Sit quietly in a chair or on the floor and gently close your eyes. Bring mindful awareness to your breath as it flow in and out of your body. Is it shallow or deep? Is your inhale longer, shorter, or the same as you exhale? just notice these things without changing them.

2. Pay attention to the sensations in your body as you breathe ---- the feel of your breath in your nostrils, your lungs, and your belly.

3. Allow yourself to experience whatever feelings come up. If stray thoughts about the past or future enter your mind, exhale them with your next breath and continue to focus on your breathing and this moment.

4. Do this for at least 5 minutes and try to work up to 15 to 20 minutes of meditation in one sitting.

From: 7 Simple Steps to Unclutter Your Life
By: Donna Smallin

[WLDKATZ]

ok Nan, you have helpped me a lot let me see if this works..........I may end up doing what sis Gypsy does and try the yoga thing!

[WLDKATZ]

Originally Posted by WLDKATZ

ok Nan, you have helpped me a lot let me see if this works..........I may end up doing what sis Gypsy does and try the yoga thing!

ok for future refferance yoga is out my leg cant get that high

[nandm]

Originally Posted by WLDKATZ

ok for future refferance yoga is out my leg cant get that high

:rof me tooo:rof

[WLDKATZ]

LOL
that hurt I went to my first one today he grabbed me and started doing twists and turns until I was giggling then he wants to put my leg behind my head I was like right and almost wet myself trying to get untangled........not ready for yoga yet

[WLDKATZ]

naw it is one stop shopping I guess, I was like dude I have a rod in my hip he said (I sware sounding like Robert Duvall) "we practice this art to become one and strengthen our mind and bodies, maybe you should try swimming" all he left out was orkas dont belong in my class......lol was funny my friend Derrick was with me ( 500 if he is a pound) he was like I can get my leg behind my head but I have to use some ones as* for my foot to guide it there........We are going to see if the college has some we are both students and he and I like to work out together ( ok he makes me feel Patite<sp>).....we shall see


Hugs and Prayers,
Pamm

[nandm]

I found this article useful, I hope you do to............Judith

----------------------------------------------------
*** How to **Really Want** to Meditate in 3 Easy Steps - By Dr. Rebbie Straubing ***
----------------------------------------------------

Many books will teach you how to meditate.

I'd like to teach you how to **really want** to meditate.

You may already want to meditate...

...but not really.

When you **really want* to meditate, some amazing things happen. I'll tell you about that in a minute. First, I'd like to ask you 3 questions:

(1) Have you ever started a meditation practice only to gradually drop off?

(2) Have you read books on meditation, tried what they taught you, and then left it for months at a time?

(3) Do you follow a path that recommends meditation, but you just can't seem to get yourself to do it consistently?

If you answered "yes" to any one of these questions, please read on.

Amazing Things Happen

When you **really want** to meditate, your meditation becomes deep and consistent. All the well-known benefits (and some not so well-known benefits) of meditation become yours on a daily basis.

* Your meditation practice becomes your main healing modality when you're sick.
* Your meditation practice becomes your link to financial abundance.
* Emotional stability, inner peace, and creativity dominate your personality.
* Your innate sense of joy and freedom become your path.
* You express your talents in ever expanding ways.

Law of Attraction and the Desire to Meditate

Law of Attraction is always bringing things of a like vibration together. Thoughts attract thoughts. The first simple and easy step that leads you to **really want** to meditate is to engage Law of Attraction. We'll start with your current desire to meditate and transform it into something that can move mountains.

Step 1:
Asking yourself why you want to meditate. Make a list of the reasons. Here are some examples.

To access:

1. joy
2. wisdom
3. inner peace
4. unconditional love
5. compassion
6. kindness
7. clarity
8. balance
9. generosity
10. integrity
11. empowerment
12. to be more truly yourself

To promote inner healing:

1. physically
2. emotionally
3. regarding addictions
4. regarding relationships
5. regarding past traumas
6. regarding body image

To promote harmonious relationships with:

1. partner or spouse
2. children
3. parents
4. siblings
5. co-workers
6. employers
7. employees
8. health care providers
9. landlords
10. tenants
11. clients
12. customers

To open to material well-being:

1. success in career or profession
2. financial prosperity
3. acknowledgement of your art
4. appreciation of your work
5. ease of material wealth
6. alignment with universal abundance

Write down the ones that mean the most to you on post-its and place them in your home, office, car, and anywhere else you go on a regular basis.

Write them like this: "Meditation brings me ____." It may seem silly at first, but just do it. "Meditation brings me joy." "Meditation brings me clients." "Meditation brings me excellent health." "Meditation brings me loving relationships." Contemplate and affirm your phrases throughout the day.

Through these little post-it contemplations, you become attracted to meditation, and it becomes attracted to you.

Step 2: Forgive Yourself
Most systems of meditation ask you to take a big leap from your everyday mind into meditation. They ask you to sit down and begin. Just like that.

That's great if you can do it. But if you can't, it's not your fault. There's a very good reason.

It's because you have no ramp.

Trying to rise from your everyday mind to the purer tone of meditation without a ramp is like trying to get your car from street level to the first story of a parking garage without a ramp. It's not easy.

So, if you've tried and failed, forgive yourself and acknowledge that the problem was not you. The problem was that you didn't have a ramp.

Step 3: Get a Ramp
A ramp can be any form of preparation for meditation. It provides the key to **really wanting** to meditate by making it attainable. The most effective ramp I know is inner alignment. Since the process is interesting and immediately rewarding, it is something you want to come back to day after day. Eventually you realize that you have a regular meditation practice with all the profound benefits.

Meditation can be the most difficult thing in the world OR it can be easy. Inner alignment makes it easy. And when it's easy, you may find that you **really want** to meditate..

Check out the Experts page for Rebbie Straubing, the Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Spiritual Healing: Rebbie Straubing | SelfGrowth.com

*****
For a complete system of inner alignment (a good ramp) that leads you into deep meditation in record time, comfortably and easily, read Dr. Rebbie Straubing's book, "Rooted in the Infinite: The Yoga of Alignment."

[indigo]

Thank you Judith I meditate every day and any additonal information is always good for me.

[citychick]

I found myself nodding 'yes' to the three questions....thank you very much for this post nandm.

[gypsytears]

Thank you nandm! I recently started meditating daily in addition to my yoga practice for most all of the reasons listed under step 1. Very timely as I just went to a meditation class at my yoga place last night. I too, always appreciate additional information .

[nandm]

"Despite the seeming simplicity, it's not easy to "stop and smell the roses." The fact is that we've trained ourselves to be constantly on the go, to always be doing something and thinking ahead. But if you never live in and fully enjoy the present, what kind of life are you living? How much are you missing out on?"
----7 Simple Steps to Unclutter Your Life
Donna Smallin

I find this is quite true in my life. I feel guilty when I am not on the go or planning to be on the go. To just sit, recognize and enjoy the moment can be one of the most difficult things to do for me. In fact that is one of the reasons I have been considering meditation, to bring the present more into focus for me. I have thought of all the moments I will never relive that were important but I was too busy to recognize it at the time. Baking Christmas cookies with my youngest daughter when she was 5; right before she went to live with her father nearly 3000 miles away. I have only seen her once since then and she turns 13 in March. There are so many moments I truly wish I had taken the time to slow down and really appreciate and enjoy. It is past time for me to start living in the moment.
---Judith

[nandm]

"Slow down. Try this simple exercise: Stand up and deliberately move across the room in slow motion. Notice how it increases your awareness and expands time. That's what slowing down in life can do for you."

----7 Simple Steps to Unclutter Your Life
Donna Smallin

[Fluttering]

Thank you nandm......

[stone]

"When you are practicing Zazen meditation do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in and go out, it will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears that the something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind and if you are not bothered by waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer...Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise but they are just waves from your own mind, Nothing comes from outside your own mind...If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind."
~Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

[nandm]

Thank you Stone.

[nandm]

Watch your every move. Over the next week, before you do anything, ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it important? Is it important enough to do right now? A ringing telephone is a perfect example. Most people automatically answer the phone without deciding to answer it. It's there for our convenience, but how easy it is to become enslaved by it! How much of what you do is action and how much is reaction? By paying closer attention to what you are doing,you can make more conscious choices about how you spend your time.

[gypsytears]

Regarding the telephone example... I check the CID before answering. Maybe I should just start answering without looking lol.

I know what you're saying though nandm .

Since I've been actively meditating and reading about (and trying to practice ) mindfulness I do notice my actions and reactions are much more deliberate and not as quick to be emotional ones.

[nandm]

Originally Posted by gypsy tears

Regarding the telephone example... I check the CID before answering. Maybe I should just start answering without looking lol.

I know what you're saying though nandm .
.

LOL I actually took it to mean just the opposite. That I do not have to feel like I have to pick up the phone just because it rings, I can choose not to answer it. But that comes from the perspective of someone who hates to talk on the phone...

[Fluttering]

When I look at the CID...I often use the tool in the 24 hour plan..."pause aned ask for the right thought"..and I ask my Hp to speak through me and I remind myself that love and tolerance is our code.

And there are times I admit I cannot answer or reposnd to a couple specific individuals as they are toxic and I know my HP does not want toxicity in my life today. Those individuals get a prayer of blessing when I see them on the CID.

[gypsytears]

Yes I understood the part about not being compelled to answer. That's why I check the caller ID... so I can make an informed decision along the lines of Flutterings answer.

I was just saying that perhaps I should break my habit by just picking up the phone lol? Not what your post suggested I know.

[stone]

"So don't be in a hurry and try to push or rush your practice.
Do your meditation gently and gradually step by step.
In regard to peacefulness, if you become peaceful, then accept it;
if you don't become peaceful, then accept that also.
That's the nature of the mind.
We must find our our own practice and persistently keep at it."
~Ajahn Chah, 'Bodhinyana'

*Although the quotes I have posted are from the Buddhist tradition I think they apply to meditation in general, I am not suggesting anyone has to get into Buddhism in order to meditate. *

[stone]

"As we begin to develop awareness of the mind, the mind itself appears to divide into two. A new aspect of the mind arises. This is referred to variously as the witness, the seer, the knower, or the
observer. It witnesses without judgment and without comment. Along with the arrival of the witness, a space appears within the mind. This enables us to see thoughts and emotions as mere thoughts and emotions, rather than as 'me' and 'mine.' When the thoughts and emotions are no longer seen as 'me' or 'mine', we begin to have choices. Certain thoughts and emotions are helpful, so we encourage them. Others are not so helpful, so we just let them go. All the thoughts and emotions are recognized and accepted. Nothing is suppressed. But now we have a choice about how to react. We can give energy to the ones, which are useful and skillful and withdraw energy from those which are not."
~Ani Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism

[nandm]

It's only possible to live happily ever after on a moment-to-moment basis
----Margaret Bonnano

[nandm]

Mindfulnesss is about waking up, living in the present, and making conscious choices about what you do, say, and think. Your future will be determined by the choices you make now. Choosing well---in every moment---takes constant watchfulness. But it is time well spent.

Also known as conscious living, mindfulness can alleviate stress and dramatically improve your relationships with yourself, love ones, and the world. Being mindful is being attentive and aware. The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness or ignorance. Which do you prefer?

[gypsytears]

How to do Mindfulness Meditation


By Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

“Mindfulness practice is simple and completely feasible. Just by sitting and doing nothing, we are doing a tremendous amount.”

In my last column I discussed why mindfulness is essential to spiritual practice, for no matter what spiritual tradition we follow, we must have a mind that is able to stay in the present moment if our understanding and experience is to deepen. Now I would like to talk about some aspects of the actual mindfulness practice.

In mindfulness, or shamatha, meditation, we are trying to achieve a mind that is stable and calm. What we begin to discover is that this calmness or harmony is a natural aspect of the mind. Through mindfulness practice we are just developing and strengthening it, and eventually we are able to remain peacefully in our mind without struggling. Our mind naturally feels content.

An important point is that when we are in a mindful state, there is still intelligence. It’s not as if we blank out. Sometimes people think that a person who is in deep meditation doesn’t know what’s going on—that it’s like being asleep. In fact, there are meditative states where you deny sense perceptions their function, but this is not the accomplishment of shamatha practice.


Creating a Favorable Environment

There are certain conditions that are helpful for the practice of mindfulness. When we create the right environment it’s easier to practice.

It is good if the place where you meditate, even if it’s only a small space in your apartment, has a feeling of upliftedness and sacredness. It is also said that you should meditate in a place that is not too noisy or disturbing, and you should not be in a situation where your mind is going to be easily provoked into anger or jealousy or other emotions. If you are disturbed or irritated, then your practice is going to be affected.


Beginning the Practice

I encourage people to meditate frequently but for short periods of time—ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes. If you force it too much the practice can take on too much of a personality, and training the mind should be very, very simple. So you could meditate for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening, and during that time you are really working with the mind. Then you just stop, get up, and go.

Often we just plop ourselves down to meditate and just let the mind take us wherever it may. We have to create a personal sense of discipline. When we sit down, we can remind ourselves: “I’m here to work on my mind. I’m here to train my mind.” It’s okay to say that to yourself when you sit down, literally. We need that kind of inspiration as we begin to practice.


Posture

The Buddhist approach is that the mind and body are connected. The energy flows better when the body is erect, and when it’s bent, the flow is changed and that directly affects your thought process. So there is a yoga of how to work with this. We’re not sitting up straight because we’re trying to be good schoolchildren; our posture actually affects the mind.

People who need to use a chair for meditation should sit upright with their feet touching the ground. Those using a meditation cushion such as a zafu or gomden should find a comfortable position with legs crossed and hands resting palm-down on your thighs. The hips are neither rotated forward too much, which creates tension, nor tilted back so you start slouching. You should have a feeling of stability and strength.

When we sit down the first thing we need to do is to really inhabit our body—really have a sense of our body. Often we sort of prop ourselves up and pretend we’re practicing, but we can’t even feel our body; we can’t even feel where it is. Instead, we need to be right here. So when you begin a meditation session, you can spend some initial time settling into your posture. You can feel that your spine is being pulled up from the top of your head so your posture is elongated, and then settle.

The basic principle is to keep an upright, erect posture. You are in a solid situation: your shoulders are level, your hips are level, your spine is stacked up. You can visualize putting your bones in the right order and letting your flesh hang off that structure. We use this posture in order to remain relaxed and awake. The practice we’re doing is very precise: you should be very much awake even though you are calm. If you find yourself getting dull or hazy or falling asleep, you should check your posture.


Gaze

For strict mindfulness practice, the gaze should be downward focusing a couple of inches in front of your nose. The eyes are open but not staring; your gaze is soft. We are trying to reduce sensory input as much as we can. People say, “Shouldn’t we have a sense of the environment?” but that’s not our concern in this practice. We’re just trying to work with the mind and the more we raise our gaze, the more distracted we’re going to be. It’s as if you had an overhead light shining over the whole room, and all of a sudden you focus it down right in front of you. You are purposefully ignoring what is going on around you. You are putting the horse of mind in a smaller corral.


Breath

When we do shamatha practice, we become more and more familiar with our mind, and in particular we learn to recognize the movement of the mind, which we experience as thoughts. We do this by using an object of meditation to provide a contrast or counterpoint to what’s happening in our mind. As soon as we go off and start thinking about something, awareness of the object of meditation will bring us back. We could put a rock in front of us and use it to focus our mind, but using the breath as the object of meditation is particularly helpful because it relaxes us.

As you start the practice, you have a sense of your body and a sense of where you are, and then you begin to notice the breathing. The whole feeling of the breath is very important. The breath should not be forced, obviously; you are breathing naturally. The breath is going in and out, in and out. With each breath you become relaxed.


Thoughts

No matter what kind of thought comes up, you should say to yourself, “That may be a really important issue in my life, but right now is not the time to think about it. Now I’m practicing meditation.” It gets down to how honest we are, how true we can be to ourselves, during each session.

Everyone gets lost in thought sometimes. You might think, “I can’t believe I got so absorbed in something like that,” but try not to make it too personal. Just try to be as unbiased as possible. Mind will be wild and we have to recognize that. We can’t push ourselves. If we’re trying to be completely concept-free, with no discursiveness at all, it’s just not going to happen.

So through the labeling process, we simply see our discursiveness. We notice that we have been lost in thought, we mentally label it “thinking”—gently and without judgment—and we come back to the breath. When we have a thought—no matter how wild or bizarre it may be—we just let it go and come back to the breath, come back to the situation here.

Each meditation session is a journey of discovery to understand the basic truth of who we are. In the beginning the most important lesson of meditation is seeing the speed of the mind. But the meditation tradition says that mind doesn’t have to be this way: it just hasn’t been worked with.

What we are talking about is very practical. Mindfulness practice is simple and completely feasible. And because we are working with the mind that experiences life directly, just by sitting and doing nothing, we are doing a tremendous amount.


Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is holder of the Buddhist and Shambhala lineages of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He has received teachings from many of the great Buddhist masters of this century, including Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche and his father Trungpa Rinpoche. In 1995 he was recognized as the incarnation of the great nineteenth-century Buddhist teacher Mipham Rinpoche.

How to do Mindfulness Meditation, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Shambhala Sun, January 2000.